Extreme Couponing: Searching for the Deals

Growing up I will always remember our family’s Sunday paper routine: Dad would immediately open up the bundle and take out the sports section, I would jockey with my brother for the comics, and Mom would furiously attack the coupons with her scissors. Although this may be a familiar childhood scene for most of you, couponing has evolved far beyond the Sunday paper. Coupons used to pretty much exist in one form: paper. Whether you got them from the newspaper, direct mail, magazines, or from your kids’ school fundraisers, you were in possession of a physical coupon. Nowadays coupons come in many forms, including QR code scans, text messages, and easily redeemable coupon codes when checking out online. Not only has the process for gathering coupons changed, but these new forms of coupons have spawned new coupon using behaviors. Search, in particular, has emerged as a critical...